News: Thor The Dark World (official UK trailer)

Hm, that one looks really interesting. Guess I now have a reason to look forward to October.

 

Into Darkness with some Bad Days on the Enterprise

On May 9th Star Trek Into Darkness opens in German movie theaters. I really hope that at least one cinema will show the original version and not only the one dubbed into German.

So yes, I’ll go and watch it even though I’m really torn about J.J. Abrams-version of Star Trek. While it says Star Trek on the outside it’s not really Star Trek on the inside. Short skirts nd a spaceship that looks like the Enterprise doesn’t make something into Star Trek. Re-inventing the story line doesn’t mean that the original philosophy behind Star Trek und the Federation has to be tossed out of the window. It should be possible to create an action driven plot and still deal with philosophical and essential questions that were (almost) always at the core of Star Trek.

The philosophical questions, as well as the social criticism that Star Trek addressed again and again were completely missing in the J.J. Abrams movie, instead it was all about revenge and destroying the enemy after a few token attempts at communications. And I think every long time Trek-fan knows how Roddenberry, how TOS Kirk & Co. dealt with topics of revenge and whether violence should beget violence.

From the trailers of ST Into Darkness it looks like it’s once again violence as an answer to violence. Is that really Trek? I think Roddenberry, the futurist and humanist that he was, would be rotating in his grave; or rather his ashes up in space would be rotating wildly if he could see what J.J. Abrams has turned his original idea into.

While the Reboot-movie was fun and had some great moments, it also had plot holes big enough to drive the whole Imperial Feet including the Deathstar through them. So my expectations of St Into Darkness are small. I will probably view it as just another SF movie with a rather specific agenda. I will watch while Pine-Kirk and Urban-McCoy flirt with each other and while Benedict Cumberbatch as the villain probably takes over the movie and steals everyone’s show.

Until then enjoy Bad Days on the Enterprise.

The witches are on the way

The mask of one of the numerous different kinds of witches that are part of the Alemannic carnival. Every witches-guild has its own mask and costume. The love scaring the little kinds when they aren’t abducting young women. One interesting fact is that behind most of the witches’ masks are men. There are still some witches-guilds around that only accept men as members, but things are changing.

Here are a few different witches’ masks:

Please don’t share these pictures without contacting and asking me first.

Confetti storm on German streets

Yesterday the street carnival in Germany started and here down South people celebrate the alemannic carnival usually called Fasnet. It’s still very traditional and far more focused on the monsters and demons of the woods, rivers and lakes, as well as all kinds of witches and other demons and devils.

In general, all of the costumes including the wooden masks are hand-made. Often als handed down from one generation to the next. Evene toddlers have already their own costume, though of course not the hand-carved masks.

Over the next few days, until Wednesday I’ll try to upload a few more pictures every day. I hope that the weather will pick up so that I can take a few more photos during the processions on Sunday and Monday. So far it’s way too wet and grey to spend hours standing at the side of the road.

Moleskine in Color, or being spoilt for choice

Sometimes it’s really the little things that brighten my day. Little things like the newest press release by Moleskine that next year the Large Moleskine Planners will be available in other colors, among them my favourite purple.

I only use the small size as an actual planner while I use the large version as a kind of dairy where I note down things like books read, daily word-count, stories written, projects worked at or finished, movies, concerts. I often just note down a few sentences to summarize the day. I’ve been doing it for years now and find it helpful to recall things or look them up.

Now while I don’t mind black the idea of having a purple planner just makes me happy. On the other hand… the green one also looks nice.

Huh, I might have a problem there: purple or green? Green or purple? Or back to black?

Message from Neil Gaiman

OMG! Right now my inner comic geek is totally giddy and doing a happy, happy dance.

Is it 2013 already? Can’t wait, because OMG.

And on a side-note: Am I the only one who enjoys listening to him because he has such a nice voice and such a lovely accent?

Just me rambling about me and the blog

I guess it’s time to finally really start the English version of my blog.

So far I’ve mostly blogged over here in German, but I’m writing more and more in English and interacting with more people worldwide where the lingua franca simply is English, hence this blog.

What will you be able to find here?

Stuff about writing mostly. My writing. Other people’s writings. Information about books written by me (hopefully). Books written by other people. Books about writing. News, entertainment, and simply fun stuff. Movies, TV shows. Me rambling about nothing and the world.

The focus will mostly be Fantasy (including Urban Fantasy), SF, some horror and maybe the odd crime novel or historical thrown into the mix.

Also photos. I love taking photos and sharing them with people. Photos will range from scenery, plants, animals, buildings. Anything that catches my eye. Probably a lot from the region of German I’m living in. Although I won’t bombard this blog with photos.

I have another blog (in German though) that focuses more closely on the region I’m living in (Southwest Germany, Kaiserstuhl and Black Forest) and has will have a lot more photos in it, in addition to entries about interesting places like museums and places of interest. With some ramblings about history and such.

I might also throw in the occasional other creative thing because I love being creative and don’t limit myself to writing. I make my own jewelry, knit, design my own knitting patterns and sometimes doodle around. I won’t call my attempts at drawing actually drawings. Maybe with a lot more practice. But it’s fun and that’s the most important thing to do.

I have this weird thing about keeping my hands busy when I’m for example watching TV, hence the knitting and doodling.

What remains of summer

Impression from todays walk. Most of the corn has already been havested and the farmers are still busy on the fields that are left. And this is what remains…